Goodbye, Woodsboro: 'Scream 6' Is Set in NYC, Where No One Comes to Help Ghostface's Victims

"Scream 6" actress Melissa Barrera revealed the film will take place in New York City, marking a first for the franchise to leave Woodsboro.

Goodbye, Woodsboro: ‘Scream 6’ Is Set in NYC, Where No One Comes to Help Ghostface’s Victims

Ghostface is officially coming to the Big Apple.

“Scream 6” star Melissa Barrera revealed that the upcoming franchise installment, set for a March 31, 2023 release date, will take place in New York City, a far cry from the longtime slasher setting of Woodsboro. Set after the events of 2021’s “Scream,” the upcoming sequel follows Barrera, Jenna Ortega, Jasmin Savoy Brown, and Mason Gooding, the surviving foursome seeking a fresh start after surviving Ghostface’s terror in suburbia. Yet the move to the big city comes with a new set of horrifying truths.

“It’s like, 20 times more mortifying,” Barrera told Collider about the New York City location. “It’s awful. Because you also see how, in a city like New York City, everyone is kind of doing their own thing and someone is screaming for help, and no one will come to their help.”

Barrera added, “No one comes to help them, you know, like, everyone’s kind of like, ‘I’m not getting into that.’ So it’s mortifying, because you’re chased by Ghostface, but you also see humanity and how that reacts in a situation like that. Anyway, I think I’ve already probably said too much.”

Co-star Ortega, who plays Barrera’s younger half-sister in the films, confirmed earlier this year that Ghostface is a “lot more intimidating” this time around.

“It just gets more and more gory. I think that this is probably the most aggressive and violent version of Ghostface we’ve ever seen, which I think will really be fun to shoot,” Ortega shared.

Radio Silence’s Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett direct “Scream 6” from a script by James Vanderbilt and Guy Busick. “Scream 4” alum Hayden Panettiere is back as wise-cracking cinephile Kirby, and franchise newcomer Dermot Mulroney plays a New York police officer. Courteney Cox will also be back as reporter Gale Weathers.

However, one cast member who is not making the trek to the Big Apple is Neve Campbell. The franchise staple and iconic final girl said she will not be returning for the sixth film amid salary disputes.

“I did not feel that what I was being offered equated to the value that I bring to this franchise, and have brought to this franchise, for 25 years,” Campbell stated. “As a woman in this business, I think it’s really important for us to be valued and to fight to be valued. I honestly don’t believe that if I were a man and had done five installments of a huge blockbuster franchise over 25 years, that the number that I was offered would be the number that would be offered to a man.”

She added, “In my soul, I just couldn’t do that. I couldn’t walk on set feeling that — feeling undervalued and feeling the unfairness, or lack of fairness, around that.”

Would-be co-star Barrera admitted Campbell’s exit was “shocking” to the cast, but pointed to intersectionality as another contextual factor.

“Especially as a woman of color, I deal with that stuff all the time where I feel like they’re not paying me what I know that I’m worth. But usually for me, I feel like it’s because I’m a Latina, and they don’t value us as much as white women,” Barrera said to Variety. “So if Neve being a white woman is feeling undervalued, that just goes to show how much of a problem it is in the industry. I applaud her sticking to what she believes in.”